About Me
Aida Pacheco-Applegate is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, and an Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Education Sciences. Her research focuses on early childhood education and development, with particular attention to child care policy, the early childhood workforce, and the caregiving strategies of low-income and Latinx families.
Aida holds a Master’s in Public Policy from the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and a Master’s in Economics from Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, Peru. She brings over nine years of professional research experience designing and implementing comprehensive program evaluations in both Peru and the United States. Throughout her career, she has led research projects and held multiple leadership roles on interdisciplinary teams, contributing to the design, implementation, and dissemination of mixed-methods studies.
Her qualitative research experience includes developing data collection instruments and analytic codebooks, conducting interviews, focus groups, classroom observations, and member-checking activities, and leading analyses using Atlas.ti and Dedoose. Her quantitative research experience includes data matching using probabilistic record linkage, data cleaning and preparation, conducting descriptive and statistical analyses, and designing data visualization tools such as interactive dashboards, maps, and HTML reports using R, Stata, SAS, Python, and SQL. She is also deeply committed to making research accessible and actionable for policy and practice audiences.
Awards, Research, and Teaching
Awards and Honors
Aida has been recognized for her scholarship and professional development through fellowships and grants, including the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) Pre-Doctoral Training Fellowship in Education Sciences and the Professional Development Grant for Emerging Scholars Studying Poverty, Economic Well-Being, and Early Care and Education from the National Research Center on Hispanic Children & Families. She earned her Master’s in Public Policy with honors from the University of Chicago, reflecting her strong academic record and commitment to advancing research in social policy and early childhood education.
Research Experience
Aida brings over nine years of professional research experience spanning both Peru and the United States. She has designed and led applied evaluations on early childhood education, social services, and family well-being, often serving in leadership roles on interdisciplinary research teams. Her work includes developing study protocols and instruments, conducting interviews and focus groups, implementing data collection and coding, performing qualitative and quantitative analyses, and translating findings into actionable reports, dashboards, and presentations for funders and stakeholders.
Teaching Experience
Aida has extensive teaching experience at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. At the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, she has served as an instructor and teaching assistant for courses including Political Processes in Policy Formulation and Implementation and The Social Meaning of Race. Earlier in her career, she taught and assisted in courses at Universidad del Pacífico in Lima, Peru, covering subjects such as microeconomics, macroeconomics, international trade, and social project assessment.